At their meeting in Bari on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 May, the finance ministers of the G7 held their first discussion on developing “policy options” to ensure taxation of the digital economy.
“We recognise the importance of monitoring and evaluating the developments related to the digitalisation of the economy and, depending on conclusions of the work by the OECD Task Force on the Digital Economy, developing policy options, as appropriate, to address related tax challenges with a consistent approach”, the ministers' final statement reads.
“The web tax is taking shape”, the Italian Minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, said before the meeting, quoted by the Italian press.
In early May, the online search engine Google agreed to pay the Italian tax authorities no less than €306 million for its activities between 2002 and 2015.
The G7 also reaffirmed its commitment to implement the BEPS action plan of the OECD to fight base erosion and profit shifting. Certain member states expressed concerns at the fact that the US may ultimately not do its bit to fight aggressive tax optimisation, where the EU has already adopted a directive translating certain OECD recommendations into European law.
In a separate statement on the fight against tax crimes and illegal financial flows, the G7 ministers expressed their support for initiatives aiming to discuss possible ways of dealing with arrangements “designed to circumvent” the global standard on the automatic exchange of information (on bank accounts), or structures “aimed at providing beneficial owners with the shelter of non-transparent structures”, taking inspiration from the approach laid down in action 12 of BEPS on the rules on the compulsory disclosure of aggressive tax planning schemes. A Commission proposal on this action 12 is awaited this summer. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)